Warrior
Warriors are World of Warcraft's premiere melee tanking class. Unlike other melee classes, such as the Energy using Rogue, Warrior abilities, mostly depend on their pool of Rage. Warriors have the ability to select from three combat stances, Battle Stance, Defensive Stance or Berserker Stance. However, many abilities have a stance-requirement which gives a situational element to game-play, both in a PVE and PVP setting. Warriors can wear any type of armor (Plate armor becomes available at level 40), are able to use shields, and can wield any weapon with the exception of wands, idols, totems and librams. The primary Warrior attribute is strength. Towards end-game, Warrior-oriented gear may also include attack power. Background As long as war is waged on Azeroth, there will be men and women who fight those wars. The warrior is no mere sword-swinger; they are skilled combatants, combining strength of arm, knowledge of weaponry and practiced maneuvers to slice or bludgeon their foes into little red bits. The warrior is the most versatile of the combat classes, and they supplement their fighting prowess with the ability to rally their allies and spur them to victory, but not only can they rally their allies into victory; they can themselves charge into the heart of the battle, take several lives and live to tell the tale. All races fight, and all races boast many warriors in their ranks. Warriors are common among dwarves, Forsaken, humans and orcs as well, less so among the other races. Masters of swords, spears, and weapons of all kinds, warriors share a common way of life on Azeroth. Using their abilities to deal pain and cause bloodshed, warriors are deadly adversaries and welcome friends in violent times (which seem to be all the time in recent decades). There have always been warriors in every race, from the murlocs to the tauren! Anyone willing to take up arms to defend their people can be classed as a warrior. Races The Warrior class can be played by the following races: Alliance * Dwarves * Gnomes * Humans * Night elves * Draenei Horde * Orcs * Trolls * Undead * Tauren As of the Burning Crusade expansion, Blood elf players are the only race that cannot be warriors, though blood elf warriors do appear in game as NPCs (including a large number in Shadowmoon Valley). Blood elf warriors are a standard class for blood elves in the RPG. Some blood elves become warriors (or scouts or hunters) — especially those seeking to be spell breakers, demon hunters, and rangers. Racial advantages *Humans: Increased expertise with swords and maces, two very popular warrior weapons. Perception passively gives the ability to detect stealthed units, which can be useful for those in PvP situations. Humans also gain the "racial PvP trinket", Every Man for Himself effectively freeing up a trinket slot which warriors might find more useful equipping the alternative PvP trinket which heals. *Dwarves: Stoneform blocks poison and bleed damage, and increases armor by 10%. Both of these can be very useful in PvE fights. The addition Frost resistance is always useful. Increased expertise with maces provides additional threat generation when using them. Though Warriors will not primarily be using guns as their main weapon, they can be useful for a pull, and Gun Specialization helps with this category. Lastly, Warriors are notorious for their high repair bills. Treasure Finding can help alleviate some of this payment, though it is minimal at best. *Gnomes: Escape Artist can be very useful, primarily in PvP situations, but also in PvE situations. Warriors being the prototypical tank often have to lead mobs and bosses away from the healers and ranged fighters, thus making Escape Artist very useful. Gnomes also benefit from increased Arcane resistance, which is always useful. Because of their small size, Gnomes warriors are useful in PvP environments, since inexperienced or careless opponents can be quickly Hamstrung, Thunder Clapped, with Sundered Armor before they have any idea as to what happened. *Night elves: Quickness adds an extra layer of survivability to Night Elf Warriors. The enhanced Nature resistance is always nice. Shadowmeld provides an interesting element to Night Elves, who can stealth to avoid mob detection (more useful for solo play). In addition, in PvP settings, Shadowmeld can be devastating. Stealth, Charge, Hamstring, Thunder Clap, etc. and Ta-da! You just became a Rogue in heavy armor! *Draenei: Gift of the Naaru reduces downtime for Warriors who are soloing, and helps conserve the mana of the group. The extra Shadow resistance is always welcomed. Heroic Presence can help Off tanks, or the Main tank perform better, depending on what role you may be fulfilling. *Orcs: Axe Specialization increases the chance to hit with one- and two-handed Axes, a very popular weapon choice. Hardiness reduces stun duration, which can save a warrior in PvP settings, or save their group in PvE settings. Blood Fury is a bit interesting; use at your own risk. It is useful for soloing and for low level raids, but a higher levels, where monsters hit significantly harder, as the main tank, you'll want healing. Blood Fury can be useful for off-tanks to gain aggro, and for DPS Warriors. ***Note: As of patch 3.0,Blood Fury no longer reduces healing effects and has had its beneficial effect increased. *Trolls: Berserking increases damage output, useful for all warriors and particularly DPS warriors. In addition, Beserking's effects are whatever your health was when you triggered it, so you can still be healed after you've used it. Regeneration can help keep you alive during PvP fights, or boss battles, and the increased healing can reduced down time for soloing players. The increased damage against beasts can be useful, since beasts are located almost everywhere in the world. The Voodoo Shuffle reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 15% as well, and the less time you spend walking to something, the more time you spend hitting it! *Forsaken: The increased shadow resistance is always useful, as is Cannibalize, which can reduce down time while soloing, and save your healer's mana. The increased Underwater breathing is also useful, especially when soloing, where a warrior might not have access to an Alchemist, or Warlock. Will of the Forsaken is one of the best racials in game, and can be the difference between life and death in both PvP and PvE settings. *Tauren: War Stomp is a useful form of crowd control. Endurance provides Tauren with extra health, meaning Tauren warriors can have the highest possible hp of any warrior tank. The additional Nature resistance is always a plus. Starting attributes Rage By default, a warrior's rage bar is empty. Warriors can gain rage by being struck in combat, dealing damage, drinking rage potions, or using certain abilities. Most of their abilities require a certain amount of rage in order to be activated - this makes rage the Warrior's equivalent of mana. When a Warrior exits combat, any left-over rage slowly decays until the bar returns to empty. The rate at which rage decays can be controlled through talents. A warrior's rage bar will drop to 0 immediately if they switches their stance. At level 20, the passive ability Stance Mastery allows them to retain 10 rage through a stance change, and the Tactical Mastery talent increases this by 5 rage per rank up to a maximum of 25 rage. Warriors need to be in combat or use a rage-generating ability to generate rage. The longer the battle, the more rage a warrior can accumulate. This often leads the warrior to the strategy of "filling up" their rage bar on a weaker foe before moving on to a more powerful enemy. A warrior with a full rage bar can quickly unload a large amount of damage. Stances The warrior has different stances for different situations. Which stance to use will also be determined by the Warrior's talents. *Battle Stance: The standard starting stance for all Warriors. A balance of offensive and defensive abilities. (-20% Threat Generated) *Defensive Stance: As it suggests, more defensive oriented and fewer offensive damaging moves. Best used when playing in the main tank role (-10% Damage Received, -10% Damage Inflicted, +45% Threat Generated). *Berserker Stance: All out attack with little regard to the Warrior's own health. Best used when somebody else is tanking and you need full-on DPS (+3% Crit, +10% Damage Received, -20% threat Generated). Some Warrior abilities are not available based on which stance you are in, so choose wisely! Remember that your rage is reduced to 10 whenever switching stances unless you have Tactical Mastery. Abilities The Warrior has various abilities, which are typically limited to certain stances. *In Defensive Stance, the Warrior can use abilities such as Revenge and Taunt. These abilities are useful for keeping aggro. *In Battle Stance, the Warrior can use a balanced array of abilities. Mocking Blow temporarily redirects threat to the Warrior, while Overpower and Retaliation are useful for dealing damage. Some abilities usable in Defensive and Berserker Stances are also usable in Battle Stance. *In Berserker Stance, the Warrior is focused on maximizing damage potential with abilities such as Berserker Rage and Recklessness. Talents Warrior talents are split into the three trees of the Arms tree, the Fury tree, and the Protection tree. Arms *Specialties: Strong bleeding skills, high burst damage with a two handed weapon. Able to execute at any time with Sudden Death. Cam reduce healing on enemies with Mortal Strike. *Strengths: High rage gain (Endless Rage) and rage efficiency skills (Overpower). Access to Tactical Mastery. *Weaknesses: No real weaknesses, but must be played with skill and be proficient with "stance-dancing" to be effective. The Arms tree consists of abilities which focus on slow 2-hander burst coupled with heavy bleeding damage to better effect. The Arms talent tree is capped by the Bladestorm ability, which when activated, whirlwinds every second for 6 seconds and causes the warrior to become unstoppable for the duration. Due to almost every warrior skill arms-based, such as Rend, Overpower, Deep Wounds and Mortal Strike to name a few, slow two-handed weapons are favored by almost every arms warrior to maximize effect. Bleeding skills are enhanced as well with the talent Trauma and Taste for Blood allows Rend to open up opportunities to use Overpower regardless of whether the the target dodged your attacks. Fury *Specialties: Powerful sustained damage and can regenerate with Bloodthirst and Blood Craze. Can passively reduce healing on enemies with Furious Attacks. Able to wield two 2handers with Titan's Grip. *Strengths: Powerful sustained damage with dual wielding and capable to do high burst damage with Bloodsurge and Bloodthirst. *Weaknesses: More fragile than the other specs, taking in more damage with Berserker Stance and relying on two weapons to perform at best, forsaking the use of a shield save for highly situational times. The Fury tree bolsters the use of dual wielding (but does not limit the warrior in any way), to dish out the highest damage that the warrior is very capable of. Critical strikes allow the fury warrior to Flurry and Bloodsurge, throwing in high Slam burst damage with their already high sustained damage. While the cost to uphold this kind of damage taxes on rage heavily, dual wielding solves the problem. With the final talent, Titan's Grip, the warrior is able to dual wield two 2-hand weapons, greatly increasing rage gain in bursts, allowing the warrior the needed rage. In the past, going too deep in the fury tree was undesired for PvP due to it's lack of "mortal strike healing debuff", but as of patch 3.0.0, warriors now gain Furious Attacks, which applies the needed healing debuff. Protection *Specialties: Access to many stuns Concussion Blow/Improved Revenge/Shockwave, able to use Charge in any stance and in combat with Warbringer. THE tank spec proficient at both AoE tanking (Damage Shield) and singular tanking. *Strengths: All-new powerful damage that was unheard of before patch 3.0.0, making the shield not just a defensive tool, but a powerful offensive one as well. Able to take very high amounts of damage and dishing high amounts back. *Weaknesses: Technically rage-starved if not being hit, though speccing deep in protection allows you to make your hits crit more often, still allowing you to burst damage without rage (Sword and Board). No healing debuff. Tanking has been redefined by blizzard, and so the protection tree likely got the biggest change (for the better) in comparison to the other trees. The protection tree features the traditional one-handed weapon + shield combination with talents to improve its use. It's likely that one would think the overall damage is lower due to not using a "powerful twohander" or "dual wielding two weapons". But when facing a protection warrior, they need to consider the shield as well. With it protection warriors could absolutely crush anyone foolish enough to attack him/her in melee, and use it to harass and silence casters. Protection warriors now scale with attack power more so than they did in the past, causing them to do much more damage. The protection tree boosts overall survivability, but also offense with the kind of tools that prot warriors use, namely the one handed weapon and shield. And with that new offense comes higher aggro buildup, making them threat machines. Pre patch 3.0.0, protection warriors were almost never considered for PvP due to their lack of damage, utility against players and lack of everything that PvP stood for, but now they return with a new style. Still lacking a healing debuff, protection warriors now focus on stunning, crippling and harrassing with their new high mobility talent, Warbringer. Blizzard's talent calculator can be found here http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warrior/talents.html Wrath of the Lich King changes Spells Battle Shout will affect the raid, not just the party. Talents *Titan's Grip is a new Fury talent and allows warriors to wield a two-hand weapon in each hand. *Protection Warriors are getting a spell called Shockwave allowing them to damage and stun all the monsters in front of them. *Bladestorm will be a new Arms talent whirlwinding all enemies in range every x seconds for a few seconds. Protection Blizzard are working on improving Protection spec so it is more viable outside of tanking by increasing damage, with improvements to Heroic Strike, Revenge, and a new spell called Shockwave. Shield Slam will also be available to all Warriors. See also * Warrior Twinking guide for details on making a warrior twink. * Warrior Instance Grouping Guide for tips in Instances. * Sun Eater vs. King's Defender for an answer to the very common question, which is best? External links *Tanking Tips Tankingtips.com is a great resource for information on warrior tanking. *TankSpot Tankspot.com is pretty much the website for tanking warrior information and resources. *Warrior Guides For advanced warrior topics (although some parts are outdated) *Pre-Raid Tanking Gear List List of Pre-Karazhan tanking gear for Warriors. * Warrior Leveling Guide - A complete leveling guide including talent builds and what gear you need. 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